John Carpenter's Halloween - The Abridged Script! (Unofficial)
by Michael Dempsey
Summary: A take on one of my favourite horror films of all time, done in the style of parody scripts from The Editing Room. I hope you like it.


October 31st 1963

A NURSERY RHYME beginning with "Trick or Treat" is heard, because evidently both the title and the captioned date won't convince the AUDIENCE the movie isn't about ST. PATRICK'S DAY, or SOMETHING.

INT: MYERS HOUSE

JUDITH MYERS and her BOYFRIEND are sitting on the couch.

BOYFRIEND

Let's have sex, then I'll leave, proving my character exists only to get you naked.

THIS HAPPENS.

YOUNG MICHAEL MYERS climbs the stairs holding a KNIFE and also the CAMERA. He picks up a CLOWN MASK using his magical third hand before entering the BEDROOM to find NAKED JUDITH.

NAKED JUDITH

Michael?!

YOUNG MICHAEL kills NAKED JUDITH! Then he runs outside and STANDS THERE, as you do.

MICHAEL'S PARENTS

(_getting out of car)  
><em>Michael?!

1978

CHILD PSYCHIATRIST DONALD PLEASANCE and NURSE NANCY STEPHENS are in a car driving at night while it's raining.

NANCY STEPHENS  
>Seems risky, transferring him from the insane asylum the day before Halloween.<p>

DONALD PLEASANCE

Just shut up and drive past the free-range lunatics while I stare intensely at everything.

DONALD gets out of the car, but YOUNG MICHAEL, who has grown up to become TONY MORAN, gets in, forcing NANCY to also get out! Then TONY drives away! Surprisingly, the BENNY HILL THEME is not playing during this.

DONALD PLEASANCE

(_raving_) The evil is gone!  
>(<em>to <em>NANCY) Are you all right?

NANCY STEPHENS

I'm OK. Or I would be if I had more lines.

DONALD PLEASANCE  
>Don't worry, you'll get, like, five more lines to say in this series before your character is killed off within the first 10 minutes of a sequel made 20 years from now.<p>

NANCY STEPHENS  
>Go me. (<em>disappears from movie<em>)

EXT: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

DONALD PLEASANCE

(_on phone_)

You'd better not shout, you'd better not cry. You'd better not pout, I'm telling you why: Michael Myers is coming to town.

(_is hung up on_)

(_pause_)

Will no one take me seriously?

EXT: HADDONFIELD, "ILLINOIS", "AUTUMN"

JAMIE LEE CURTIS leaves her house and is called to by her FATHER.

FATHER

Leave the key at the Myers' place!

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

You're shitting me! You mean people are actually considering buying the dilapidated murder house? You must be one HELL of a real estate agent!

BRIAN ANDREWS

OH MY GOD JAMIE DON'T GO IN THERE, IT'S REALLY OLD! And maybe haunted!

TONY MORAN, aiming for the ALBINO WILLIAM SHATNER look, dons a MASK and becomes MICHAEL MYERS.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS sees MICHAEL MYERS stalking her in various physical places because FACEBOOK has yet to be invented.

EXT: STREET, HADDONFIELD, "ILLINOIS", "AUTUMN"

NANCY LOOMIS

Let's use banter to quickly establish our characters. I'm snappy and sarcastic.

PJ SOLES

I'm perpetually high.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

(_singing to a bird that has landed on her finger_)

I'm quiet and innocent.

NANCY LOOMIS

Glad that's sorted.

(_pause_)

So tonight I'm babysitting and then possibly having filthy, filthy sex with my boyfriend unless I get horribly murdered.

PJ SOLES

I'm TOTALLY "babysitting" too, by which I mean I'll be having filthy, filthy sex with my boyfriend, and dying afterwards.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I'll be babysitting.

NANCY LOOMIS

Oh yeah? (_cocks eyebrow, winks_)

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

No, I'll **actually** be babysitting.

NANCY LOOMIS

Oh right.

PJ SOLES

Totally.

INT: HOUSE

The PHONE rings and JAMIE picks it up. She is creeped out by the sound of CHEWING, because she thinks the guy who's stalking her might be EATING THE PHONE.

NANCY LOOMIS

Surprise, it's me!

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Who the fuck calls someone and starts eating something at the exact same time? If you can't say 'hello', how am I supposed to know it was you?

NANCY LOOMIS

You're losing it, Jamie.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I'm not crazy! Let me prove that by saying "calm down" aloud to myself, alone in my room. You know, instead of breathing deeply or something like normal people do.

NANCY LOOMIS

I'll pick you up but let's first drive around for hours and hours until it gets dark for some reason.

EXT: STREET

DOCTOR DONALD PLEASANCE

I'm waiting to tell the sheriff about a murderer in a station wagon, so I will carefully look up and down the sidewalk, with my back to the road where anyone could drive past without my noticing.

MICHAEL MYERS

(waving at camera)

INT: MYERS' HOUSE

DOCTOR DONALD PLEASANCE and SHERIFF CHARLES CYPHERS are EVIL-HUNTING.

DONALD PLEASANCE

I met this six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I realised that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil.

CHARLES CYPHERS

[_beat_]

That's your professional diagnosis?

INT: DOYLES' (ANDREWS') HOUSE

BRIAN ANDREWS

What about the jack-o-lantern?

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

No.

BRIAN ANDREWS

What about my comic books?

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I think not.

BRIAN ANDREWS

What about the bogeyman?

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Er, so what about the jack-o-lantern?

INT: WALLACES' (RICHARDS') HOUSE

MICHAEL MYERS plans to make NANCY LOOMIS turn her HEAD by smashing a HANGING BASKET... and succeeds!

NANCY LOOMIS

...  
>(<em>continues with her life<em>)

NANCY LOOMIS gets stuck halfway through a window because of gratuitous UNDERWEAR LEGS. KYLE RICHARDS enters and finds her in this predicament.

KYLE RICHARDS

Pahahahaha stuckinawindow hahahaha!

NANCY LOOMIS

Phew! Good thing it's 1978 instead of 2014 when it'd be practically considered sexual child abuse, letting you see me in just my underwear.

MICHAEL kills a DOG by PICKING IT UP.

NANCY gets in her CAR but is attacked by MICHAEL, who strangles her and then fatally stabs her in the SHOULDER BLADE.

NANCY LOOMIS

But that shouldn't – (_dies_)

PJ SOLES rings JAMIE but MICHAEL starts strangling PJ with the cord before JAMIE picks up; JAMIE thinks it's NANCY on the other end.

PJ SOLES

HUNNNNGHHHH! URRRRRRRR! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

All right, Nancy – first I get your famous CHEWING, now I get your famous ORGASMING?

PJ SOLES dies and MICHAEL puts the phone to his ear. It is one of the creepiest moments in the film; all this day, Michael has been getting closer and closer to Jamie, until finally there's just a phone line between them.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

At least you're not eating the phone.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Sleep tight, kids. I'm leaving you unsupervised and unprotected on Halloween night as I wander across the road, losing the key on the way. I'm not a very good babysitter, am I?

INT: RICHARDS' HOUSE

JAMIE sees NANCY LOOMIS'S body on the bed beneath NAKED JUDITH'S HEADSTONE, and WHIMPERS. Then she sees PJ SOLES'S body, and SCREAMS. Then she sees PJ SOLES'S BOYFRIEND'S body and SCREAMS again. Then she runs out onto the landing and, for variation, goes back to WHIMPERING.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I hope this reaction was what you were hoping for, Michael, after putting all that effort into what is essentially a protracted jump-scare.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS is stabbed in the arm and falls over the banister and down the stairs in an apparently JERKY/HEAD-SHAKEY WAY.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

OH GOD HELP ME PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP ME! AAAIEEEEEEEEE! HELP ME? CAN'T YOU HEAR ME? OOF! OUCH! AAAAAAAAH! PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME! OH GOD!

(_to camera)_

They don't call me the Scream Queen for nuthin'.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

And now to probably kill but definitely traumatize the children I am supposed to care for by inadvertently luring an evil, supernatural killer to the house where they're sleeping! To protect the children, I must endanger the children! Wait, what?

(_pause_)

I am a terrible babysitter.

INT: ANDREWS' HOUSE

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

A billowing curtain, oh no! Aah, some knitting will take my mind off all the horror.

She is interrupted by MICHAEL, who jumps up from behind the SOFA and stabs the SOFA. JAMIE plunges the knitting needle into his NECK in retaliation. MICHAEL pulls the needle out of his neck and then looks at it as he collapses.

MICHAEL MYERS

*Durrr*

JAMIE runs upstairs to find the children because she remembers that she has a JOB.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

I think I killed the bogeyman so those footsteps on the stairs are probably a police officer's, or something.

BRIAN ANDREWS

You can't kill the bogeyman AAAIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Quick, you two – hide in that room, while I hide in a different one for some reason and won't be able to protect you if Michael tries to kill you first! Man, I am one seriously fucking awful babysitter.

JAMIE hides in a closet and MICHAEL attacks her there, but she stabs him with a COAT HANGER and he loses ANOTHER LIFE and has to go back to the CHECKPOINT.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Instead of going to look for the children I'll once more assume Michael's dead and sit down with my back to him, allowing him to sneak up on me. I'll also leave the knife beside him because of reasons. WHO IN THE HOLY FUCK THOUGHT I'D BE AN EVEN SLIGHTLY COMPETENT BABYSITTER?

DONALD PLEASANCE

Get away from her, you bitch!

DONALD PLEASANCE demonstrates his medical professionalism towards THE ONLY PATIENT HE'S EVER HAD by goddamn SHOOTING HIM A MILLION TIMES.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

What's the bogeyman?

DONALD PLEASANCE

As a matter of fact, that WAS. And will be. But then he won't be. And then he will be again. And again. And again. And then again. AND AGAIN. Then he'll be re-agained. Then re-agained again.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Sorry?

DONALD PLEASANCE

We both will be.

MICHAEL MYERS BREATHES EVERYWHERE.

END...?


End file.
